Galerie Monbrison

In 1968 a Paris gallery called Galerie Simone de Monbrison issued Arts antiques = Arts primitifs, a 66-page catalogue in French and English⁸. An Open Library record lists a further publication of 1970 under the same name⁹.

According to the gallery, Alain de Monbrison has specialised in the ancient arts of Africa and Oceania since 1971⁴. A professional-body listing gives 1981 as the year Galerie Monbrison was founded, so the sources date its start differently⁶. The gallery's team page names only Alain de Monbrison, who says he was International Consultant at Christie's in 2001-2002⁵. Museums said to hold African and Oceanic pieces from the gallery include the Musée du Quai Branly, the Metropolitan Museum, the Smithsonian, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Barbier-Mueller Museum³.

Its Cypriot material appears in other people's provenance records. A limestone head of a young prince, 37 x 20 x 26 cm, dated to the end of the 6th century BC and part of a life-size statue, was with Galerie Simone de Monbrison before 1980. It passed to Jean-Pierre Farnier of Boulogne in 1981, then to Michel Faidutti of Geneva and to Galerie Sycomore of Geneva, and the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art acquired it on 13 June 2018⁷. Christie's provenance lines also name Galerie Monbrison for Cypriot pieces, one ahead of Anton Pestalozzi in 1988¹ and one in the early 1990s².